Professor Courtenay Bartholomew

PROFESSOR COURTENAY BARTHOLOMEW
Medical Researcher

Professor Courtenay Bartholomew was the first
Trinidadian-born Professor of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of the
West Indies. He is currently the Director of the Medical Research Foundation of
Trinidad and Tobago and Professor Emeritus of Medicine.

He
has had an illustrious career spanning over four decades and is highly regarded
as a clinician and medical researcher. He is especially reputed for his work on
scorpion induced pancreatitis, viral hepatitis and on pioneering new approaches
to the diagnosis of bowel disease in the Caribbean via endoscopic procedures. He
has also been credited with the diagnosis of the first cases of AIDS in the
English-speaking Caribbean.

Aids Virus

Courtenay Felix Bartholomew grew up in Port of Spain,
Trinidad. He attended Nelson Street Boys’ R.C. School and then St. Mary’s
College where he came 4th in the island in the House Scholarship Awards of the
Senior Cambridge Examination in 1948. He was an avid sportsman in cricket,
football and table tennis and after obtaining the Higher School Certificate in
languages in 1950, he worked for four years in Her Majesty’s Customs before
leaving for Dublin, Ireland to pursue medical studies. He graduated in medicine
in 1960 from the University College Dublin (UCD).

In 1964 he was the first West Indian to obtain a specialty
degree in the subspecialty of gastroenterology from the Royal College of
Physicians of Edinburgh. In 1965 he was awarded the Doctorate in Medicine (DM)
from the National University of Ireland. He joined the Faculty of Medicine, UWI
in 1987 as the first lecturer in medicine to inaugurate the Medical School in
Trinidad and Tobago. In 1983 he was the only West Indian to be awarded the MRCP
degree (Member of the Royal College of Physicians of London) without
examination. He is also the only West Indian to be awarded Honorary Fellowships
from the three Royal Colleges (Ireland, Edinburgh and London). He has served as
visiting clinical professor at the Liver Unit, University of Miami and the
Gastroenterology Unit of the Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University, Canada.

He was awarded the Chaconia Medal Gold by the government of
Trinidad and Tobago in 1975 for long and meritorious service in the field of
medicine and in July 2004, he received the rare honour of Honorary Fellow of the
Faculty of Medicine of UCD. He has also been appointed a member of the
International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO.

Professor Courtenay Bartholomew has authored seven books
on his research on the Blessed Virgin Mary and has also spearheaded the
restoration of three historical Catholic churches in Trinidad, including the
design of 25 stained glass windows.